“Prude” wasn’t always a negative word, but in the last century it’s come to describe someone who seems to feel disgust, revulsion, or fear towards expressions of intimacy.

Synonyms include: prig, prissy, goody-goody, fuddy-duddy, killjoy, moralist, and puritan (ironic, that last one, as the original Puritans definitely enjoyed the good life, but that’s a topic for another time).

The people I’ve most heard called “prudes” are Christians, and that’s why I care about this topic. Some of us who follow Christ may well be prudish (but so are a lot of non-Christians)—but what I want to show you is that Christianity is not prudish.

What I want to show you is that Christianity is chaste, and chastity is a very good thing. In fact, it’s the opposite of prudery, just as love is the opposite of fear.

Chastity isn’t just virginity: chastity is appropriate expression and enjoyment of affection and intimacy. For example, sex with someone who’s not your spouse is utterly unchaste, but nothing is more chaste than sex within marriage.

The difference between chastity and prudery can be confusing, because the two can act very similar. The difference is in the attitude. Prudery tends to be fearful, disgusted, cold, and self-righteous (especially when a prude is priggish). On the other hand, true and God-inspired chastity should be joyful and celebrate intimate affection!

The bottom line is that God invented intimacy, and He thinks it’s a great idea. Like anything else, it has its boundaries—just like water, food, fire, and wine, it has its harmful and helpful uses—but within those guides, it is a wonderful, God-blessed thing, and Christians should treat it as such.

“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure . . . ”

We’ve made room for a lot of lies by treating these words as purely negative—as though “honoring marriage” had only to do with abstinence beforehand.

Marriage should be the one place in all the body of Christ that He shines through most clearly. The Christ-centered union of a son of the King to a daughter of Heaven is one of our clearest pictures of what God Himself is like. To enjoy and celebrate that, for yourself and your spouse and others, is incredibly chaste. Prudery is not part of Christianity, but chastity certainly is.

Like this:

From Joe Messina, a local Republican Party chairman, in the Santa Clarita Signal:

“Chairman Messina argued that if counter protesters hadn’t shown up in the first place, nothing would have happened and the white supremacist message, which he and his fellow 38th District Republicans strongly oppose, would not have been broadcast on an international level . . . ‘You let those idiots over there go do their thing, leave them alone, don’t give them any attention and they burn themselves out,’ Messina said” (A5).

No, they don’t. They don’t stamp and scream for attention and tucker themselves out unheeded. They’re not toddlers. They’re ideologues. It’s ignorant and shortsighted to suggest that the best strategy is to simply ignore them until they go away.

White supremacists are dedicated to white power. Their “great cause” carries quasi-religious tones. They will no more starve from lack of attention than will ISIS. They imagine their culture, their way of life, and their very bodies are threatened. When you believe you’re threatened this way, do you just quiet down because no one’s paying attention? No: you yell louder.

Fascism will be a danger for as long as the United States exists. As long as there are people frustrated with the political process who are willing to justify violence to get their way, fascism will be a threat. Fascism will be a threat as long as anyone buys the myth of racial superiority.

Evil must be called out for what it is, because evil does not die in the dark. It festers.

Like this:

In the church circles I know, it seems that when we talk about “the cost of following Christ,” we mean one of two things:

A) enduring ridicule and ostracism from nonbelievers; or,

B) literal martyrdom

People seem to tend towards one extreme or another. But do we consider anything else on the spectrum between the two?

Following Christ might mean you’re late for a date because you stopped to help someone on the side of the road (and decided not to leave until it was resolved). Showing mercy might mean missing events altogether because of Kingdom business.

Following Christ might mean associating with people you’d rather not: people who make you uncomfortable, whom you’d rather not be seen with, who trigger every prejudice (disguised to you as “reason” or “wisdom”) you have. Visiting “widows and orphans in their distress” might mean embracing people who’d make your friends’ noses wrinkle.

Following Christ might mean passing up opportunities to make money because you have more important things to do. It might mean you can’t buy a home or a new car. It might mean going without new clothes, movies, eating out, smartphones, wifi, or any luxury we’ve come to consider essential to life. It might mean getting funny looks, then concern, then ire even from other Christians who think you’re too extreme: you’re giving too much of your time and money.

Following Christ might mean drawing ridicule from those in power and their clients; then, after ridicule, subversion and even open hostility, because whatever the GOP wants you to think, the powers that rule this world are not friendly to the mission of Christ.

Like this:

Are U.S. students quitting college en masse because their unprepared, fragile little minds can’t handle cramming college courses between all-night parties and posting on Instagram? Or because they’re so pampered by their helicopter parents that they can’t function without their caregivers meeting their every need? Or because they’re entitled, spoiled, lazy narcissists whose delicate egos can’t handle less than an A? Actually, despite what TIME Magazine, The Atlantic, Business Insider, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, Psychology Today, Forbes, the New York Post, National Review, The Guardian, and others would claim, all the above is far from the truth.

41% of college students quit without finishing their degree. What’s the biggest reason for this? Believe it or not, it’s because they’re poor—so poor, in fact, that their parents and financial aid packages can’t pay enough to free them from the need to work. These students aren’t working so they can afford iPhones, slick cars, restaurants, travel, and party supplies: these students are working to pay for food and housing for themselves and their families. For many of them, the stress of balancing work and school becomes too much.

So they quit. They work full-time at lower-wage jobs because the landlord and grocery store won’t accept “I have to pay for school” and an IOU. Sure, that bright future of earning more with a college degree looks shiny and promising (though less promising now than previously), but the cost to get there is just too steep.

According to research by Public Agenda (sponsored by the Gates Foundation), just 11% of college dropouts said a “major reason” they quit school was they “didn’t like sitting in class,” and only 14% said it was because “many of the classes were boring” (Johnson 7).

By contrast, 71% of college dropouts said they left school because they “needed to go to work and make money”, and 52% said they “just couldn’t afford the tuition and fees” (ibid.). The same source also found these students “were often assuming responsibilities and financial burdens that traditional full-time college students do not have to shoulder,” such as caring for dependent children and family members (6).

These conclusions are also supported by Dēmos, a public policy research center, which reported, “Surveys of students who have left college without earning a credential routinely cite employment and finances as the main reasons for student departure” (Orozco 1).

The cost of college

Is it truly surprising that the lowest earners can’t afford school, given the enormous increase in college costs?

If we really need a citation to say school’s gotten more expensive, citations are widely available. According to the College Board, inflation-adjusted tuition and fees at public four-year institutions have risen 270% over the last 40 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that, from 1978 to 2011 (33 years), tuition rose three and a half times more than the Consumer Price Index and the average hourly wage (Clemmons). In contrast, in the 30 years from 1982 to 2012, inflation-adjusted average family income rose only 16% (WhiteHouse.gov). Furthermore, from 1980 to 2000, the ratio of cost of education to income doubled for the lowest-income families, i.e., those most likely to quit college (National Center 5).

Why is school so expensive?

Culprits include administrative costs, regulation, and the rise of the luxury campus:

Administration

According to Paul Campos, law professor and author, the number of administrators in the California State University system grew 221% from 1975 to 2008 (n.p.). And what was the increase in full-time faculty during the same time? Three and a half percent.

Campos goes on: it’s not just the CSU system. “According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.”

Regulation

Colleges and universities are broadly treated as state agencies. In the words of Dr. Lyall, this subjects them to “mandatory participation in state health insurance and pension programs,” and they don’t get to “manage their own capital bonds and building projects” or “their own human resources (hiring and pay) policies” (ibid.). This is repeated by Robert C. Dickeson in a report for the Secretary of Education: “Federal regulations impose additional costs on college budgets . . . as many as 12 different federal agencies impose regulations on colleges, and most of the requirements are neither coordinated nor paid for” (2).

Bureaucracy is inherently inefficient, compounding costs of compliance, not to mention requiring ever-growing administrative staffs to keep up with regulations.

Luxury campuses and athletics

Rudy Fichtenbaum, professor and president of the American Association of University Professors, pins blame for college costs on many universities that “have borrowed millions to build luxury dorms, new dining halls and rock-climbing walls” as well as “[subsidize] intercollegiate athletics” (ibid.). This compounds the regulatory burden as many of these facilities, including healthcare clinics, daycare centers, sports centers, dining halls, and dorms are all subject to their own sets of laws and reporting requirements.

What do we do?

In the face of all these factors, how can we cut the cost of education so our poorer students can stay in school?

Cut administration

Cut administrative staff. Or, in the event university presidents and boards of directors aren’t willing to slash their own salaries and support staff, students will have to take action to pressure their schools to cut costs.

Reduce regulation

State and federal governments need to work with schools to coordinate and reduce regulatory demands, treating them less like state agencies and more like businesses. They should be able to make their own bottom-up decisions on pay, benefits, construction, bonds, and maintenance, rather than contort to top-down regulations.

Take learning online

Massively-open online courses are already giving first-rate professors the opportunity to reach thousands of students at a time. Courses from venues like Coursera, Udacity, edX, StraighterLine, the Saylor Foundation, and Khan Academy provide highly affordable (or even free) channels for students to learn the fundamentals of a given discipline at their own pace. If colleges want to reduce costs and retain students, they should make agreements with these providers to accept their coursework for credit (as hundreds of schools have already done).

Simplify campus and work to learn

Maybe we don’t need more schools with luxury housing and glitzy athletics. Maybe we want more places like the College of the Ozarks, nicknamed “Hard Work U” because students live simply, work on campus, and pay no tuition.

Towards an idea

There is no easy or single answer to the rising problem of college costs, but while it remains, the poorest (as usual) are the ones most affected. While it persists, it’s not an economic problem, it’s a social problem, and if universities and governments want to get serious about the ideals they preach of liberality and equity, they need to get serious about cutting costs of education, even at the expense of tradition, comfort, administrative jobs, and athletics.

Simply put, a school should have willing students, great teachers, and the absolute minimum of everything else. No more luxury campuses, no more administrative bloat, no more fanciest newest everything. The idea of the university is to build the mind: let’s make that the first priority.

I was in a videogame, watching myself, not sure I was controlling my actions. The action climaxed on a tropical beach. The clouds turned crimson and thundered, and from the lightning over the water a giant rubber ducky appeared. This monstrosity shot lightning bolts at me; I found myself dodging at incredible speed with martial mastery. Then I woke up.

So kung fu? Essentially, it’s not a martial art, but “skill gained through long effort and application of prolonged practice” (according to Victor Mair of UPenn).

As a citizen, debater, employee, speaker, and soon-to-be teacher, the skill I’m destined to master is kung fu of the mind.

Here’s how I read the dream: whether real life is illusion (videogame or otherwise), whether I really have agency over my actions, whether this dream was a sign or subconscious gibberish, whatever horrors strange or mundane may come, I must do the best I can with my abilities and circumstances. So I’m learning to ground myself and discern and interpret all things nimbly and skillfully, whatever their source: to engage with information and argument, take it all in, take it apart, critique it, digest, and apply it, whether in the realm of literature, teaching, science, business, or anything — to see the lightning coming, dodge, and (eventually) learn to redirect it back.

I know kung fu. And it will empower everything I do in life, for building my students, others, and myself.

About 2,300 years ago, in ancient Greece, a very wise man named Plato recorded many of the words of his master, Socrates. Once, Socrates had a conversation with a priest of the gods, whose name was Euthyphro. Socrates loved to ask people questions about all sorts of things. In this case, he questions Euthyphro on the nature of “piety” or “piousness:” that is, following what the gods command.

The fundamental question becomes: is the pious pious because the gods ordain it, or is the pious some higher standard that the gods adhere to?

Like this:

Perhaps the greatest mystery of the faith is this: God gives us no less gift than Himself, through the person of Jesus Christ, facilitated by the work of the Holy Spirit.

It may be partially understood this way: the greatest gift a good parent can give is themselves. Ultimately, your children don’t want your money, gifts, or any other material thing: they want you. They want your love, time, play, and affirmation. Don’t we see how children simply want to be near mom and dad? To children who are secure in the love of their parents (a desperately rare thing), their parents themselves are the cure for what ails them.

In much the same way, God’s ultimate answer for a broken world, a world crying out for peace and justice, was not the flame and the sword; it was not to appear in terror and execute the evildoers in one fell stroke; it was not welfare programs or money or food; it was not education, law, or medicine; it was not setting a code for people to live up to, to better themselves by their own willpower. It was Himself.

It was Himself — the unimaginable, unanticipated thing — God Himself in human form; and not just any human, but a baby boy, born in a stable to a pair of poor peasants in some no-name backcountry, far from the seat of nobility and worldly power, turned away by all and heralded to no one except a few outcasts and foreigners.

With the poor, oppressed, and lowly

Lived on earth our Savior holy

When a king or president returns to his people or visits a foreign country, he is attended by great pomp and circumstance: soldiers, parades, dignitaries, receptions, lavish gifts, etc. That is the world’s way. That was not God’s way.

The people of the time were looking forward to a military Messiah, come to ride in victory and cast off the shackles of Rome, come to make Israel great again. What they got instead was a baby: the God-man, the perfect man, destined to die a traitor’s death and rise again so that we could be near Him and become like Him.

That is the greatest Gift of all, and that is what we celebrate at Christmas.

That is why we say “merry Christmas” to total strangers; that is why we put up lights in remembrance of the Light of the World; that is why we bring evergreen trees into our homes to symbolize the eternal life; that is why we deck out in green for peace and life, red for love and the blood of Christ, and white for purity and holiness; that is why we ring the bells and go a-caroling for the music of heaven and choir of angels; that is why we give gifts in remembrance of the greatest Gift of all.